A Plague upon Humanity by Daniel Barenblatt Review: A Haunting, Meticulously Documented Historical Exposé

A Plague upon Humanity investigates the biological warfare program developed by Imperial Japan's military research group known as Unit 731, active during the 1930s and 1940s. At its center is Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, the unit's commanding scientist, whom Barenblatt — drawing on a decade of research — characterizes as "the archetype of a highly functioning sociopath, playing the dramatic role of the unstable 'mad doctor' with flourish." The program included human experimentation on prisoners, the aerial spraying of entire cities with fleas carrying bubonic plague, and the deployment of dozens of biological weapons against Chinese soldiers and civilians, as well as Russian and Mongolian troops stationed on the Manchurian frontier. Chinese researchers have estimated that as many as 580,000 people were killed by Japanese germ warfare operations, a figure Barenblatt incorporates into his account alongside his own findings.

One of the book's defining arguments concerns not just what Unit 731 did, but what happened — and critically, what did not happen — afterward. Barenblatt documents that U.S. Occupation forces under General Douglas MacArthur struck a deal with the doctors of Unit 731 that shielded them from accountability for their atrocities, allowing key figures to escape the kind of prosecution applied at Nuremberg. He further establishes, through his research, that the Allied powers had knowledge of Unit 731 and its program as early as 1939. This Cold War calculus — in which Pentagon officials chose to absorb Japan's biological warfare data rather than prosecute its architects — forms the moral and political backbone of the book's second half.

critics described the work as "a surprisingly tortuous study of Imperial Japan's biological warfare program," acknowledging that while Unit 731 is no longer entirely secret — having figured in news coverage of ongoing Chinese reparations demands — Barenblatt's decade of tracking the story yields "hard-won facts" not widely available in prior English-language treatments. The book's scope extends beyond the laboratory to encompass the staged Mukden Incident of 1931 that triggered Japan's invasion of Manchuria, situating Unit 731 within the full arc of Imperial Japan's military aggression. By incorporating firsthand accounts from both perpetrators and survivors, Barenblatt gives the historical record a human dimension that purely archival accounts can lack.

The book's documented strengths lie in its depth of primary sourcing — firsthand testimony, newly surfaced evidence — and in Barenblatt's willingness to assign moral culpability not only to the Japanese military but to American Cold War decision-makers. Critical coverage review, however, noted the "tortuous" quality of the study, a word that in context signals that the book's density and the complexity of its subject matter can make for demanding reading. Readers seeking a streamlined narrative may find the volume of documented detail challenging to absorb, while those with a prior academic background in the Pacific War or war crimes history will find the evidentiary approach appropriate to the gravity of the subject.

Published by HarperPerennial and now available in a reprint paperback edition, A Plague upon Humanity is aimed at general readers with a serious interest in World War II history, war crimes accountability, and the intersection of science and state violence. It functions as both an introduction to Unit 731 for those unfamiliar with the subject and as a contribution to ongoing historical debates about postwar justice — or the deliberate lack of it. Readers drawn to works that confront the political dimensions of historical memory, particularly as they relate to American foreign policy in the Pacific, will find Barenblatt's argument directly and unflinchingly stated.